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September 4, 2006

European Scientists Hail Successful Moon Mission

by Sam Savage

DARMSTADT, Germany -- Europe's first probe to the moon has provided key information that will pave the way for future inter-planetary missions and shed light on the earth's violent origins, scientists said on Monday.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) unmanned SMART-1 spacecraft ended its three-year mission to test new propulsion technology and explore the lunar surface by crashing into the near side of the moon on Sunday.

"The SMART-1 goals have been fully achieved," Giorgio Saccoccia, head of ESA's aerothermodynamics and propulsion division, told a news conference in Darmstadt. "SMART-1 was a technology genius."

The main goal of the mission was to test the use of a new electric propulsion system and communications techniques that ESA plans to use on future flights to other planets, including the BepiColombo mission to Mercury planned for 2013.

The SMART-1 orbiter spent 16 months in close orbit around the moon, studying the many craters on the lunar surface to help understand the collisions that caused them.

"The moon is a laboratory where you can study early rocky planets. It's a history book," said Bernard Foing, a project scientist at ESA. "These bombardments also took place on earth in its early history."

Lunar scientists suspect a huge collision between the newly formed earth and a small planet created the moon.

When results from the mission are fully analyzed -- a process that will take many years -- they may support or challenge that theory.

ESA scientists said SMART-1 -- which stands for Small Mission for Advanced Research and Technology -- had yielded better results than expected and shown the world that Europe, which has devoted far less resources to space exploration than the United States, was a big player.

"What we have shown is that Europe can do these things," said David Southwood, ESA's director of science.

In 2007 or 2008, India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft will go into orbit around the moon, equipped with the same infrared and X-ray instruments that SMART-1 carried.